The authors hold that genital acts outside a permanent heterosexual marriage open to procreation, though objectively serious moral evils (sins) that reject God's love, may actually not reject that love due to the ignorance or weakness of the person doing the acts.
The authors hold that genital acts outside a permanent heterosexual marriage open to procreation, though objectively serious moral evils (sins) that reject God's love, may actually not reject that love due to the ignorance or weakness of the person doing the acts.
See pp. 310-11. Thus depending on the circumstances, what is objectively a serious evil may have diminished subjective culpability. One can imagine cultures, for example, where cannibalism, slavery, sexual mutilation, all serious objective evils, do not totally alienate their agents from God because of their ignorance fostered by their culture. So also in our culture of death, those who have abortions may be so stupefied by prevailing ignorance of human dignity that they are not subjectively fully responsible for their actions.
The authors hold that genital acts outside a permanent heterosexual marriage open to procreation, though objectively serious moral evils (sins) that reject God's love, may actually not reject that love due to the ignorance or weakness of the person doing the acts.
See pp. 310-11. Thus depending on the circumstances, what is objectively a serious evil may have diminished subjective culpability. One can imagine cultures, for example, where cannibalism, slavery, sexual mutilation, all serious objective evils, do not totally alienate their agents from God because of their ignorance fostered by their culture. So also in our culture of death, those who have abortions may be so stupefied by prevailing ignorance of human dignity that they are not subjectively fully responsible for their actions.